


It Goeth Before The Fall

by ReaperWriter



Series: Mansion House Nocturnes [4]
Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Civil War, F/M, Hospital, Matchmaking, Slow Burn, antagonists to friends to lovers, current canon compliant, pride and prejudice - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-18
Updated: 2016-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-27 09:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6278653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's a little matchmaking between friends, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Goeth Before The Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emmadelosnardos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmadelosnardos/gifts).



It was really Emma Green’s fault.  Mary still wasn’t quite sure what to do with the young woman, but she would admit that their relationship had moved from being purely antagonistic (by dint of the fact they had both realized Dr. Foster…Jed…was right, and that blood was in fact red no matter what color uniform the patient wore), but they weren’t really what she would consider to be true friends.  Colleagues, she supposed, though she applied the same title to Anne Hastings, and surely Emma deserved better than that. 

No, it was Emma’s fault because she gave her the book.  “Nurse Mary!” She called up the stairs to her as she had been heading up to try to get some sleep for the night.  Mary turned and found the girl standing at the bottom, her own hat in hand and cape in place.  Jacob, one of the porters stood ready to walk her home in the summer twilight.  “I brought you something.  I heard you mention reading materials to the matron, and, well, I had this and the heroine made me think of you.  I thought you might like it.” 

Mary stepped back down the stairs, reaching out for the slim leather covered book.  “Thank you, Miss Green, that is very kind.”  She smiled at the young woman.  “Have a safe walk home tonight.  I’ll see you in the morning?” 

“Goodnight, Nurse Mary.”  And with that, Emma turned and was gone.  Mary continued back up the stairs, checking in on the surgical rooms and few quarantined patients as she went.  By the time she reached her own room, exhaustion had overtaken her, so she put the little book on her bedside table, slipped off her shoes, and after snuffing out her lamp, curled up on the bed to sleep. 

It was another three days before she had time to read.  Well, made time to read.  She had always been a voracious reader, and one of her main deprivations at Mansion House (leaving aside for the moment the frequency with which her bed was commandeered for visiting family of this patient or that) was the lack of time to read and available books to do so with.  So when they hit a slight lull in patient flow a few days after Emma had pressed the book into her hands, she had awoken extra early, pulled out the small bread roll and hard cheese she had brought up the night before, and opened the book. 

At first, she imagined it would not be to her taste.  As a rule, she preferred poets and essayists to writers of fiction, with its convoluted plots and ridiculous hijinks.  She liked to feel edified in her reading, to expand her mind.  She might have shut the book with a sigh but for two things.  First, in all probability, this had been Emma’s version of an olive branch, and the girl might wish to discuss a probable favorite work with her.  And second, she was at least a bit intrigued it was written by a woman. 

Fortifying her spirit with more roll, she dove in, and in short order found that she was quite caught up in the story of a woman of genteel birth but limited means and the wealthy, yet arrogant land owner whose eye she attracts.  So caught up, in fact, she was only roused from the story by Anne knocking loudly on her door and inquiring if she planned to laze about all day.   

Over the next few days, as she had spare time, she’d pull out the book and read another chapter or two.  And as she did, she noted something curious.  As it had all summer, ever since the President’s visit, her attitude to Jed Foster continued to soften.  Now, though, she was viewing him through new eyes.  Yes, he had a great deal of pride, but didn’t he deserve much of it?  Wasn’t he an incredibly skilled, daring, and brilliant doctor?  Yes, they held radically different views on slavery and the meaning of the war, but she could admit, without ceding her own side, that his life shaped his beliefs, as hers did, and that his views could evolve in time.  She had seen that in his treatment of Samuel Diggs.  And they were both on the same side, after all.  Yes, he was troubled- the morphine, his unfortunate marriage, his disaster of a mother.  But wasn’t she just as troubled? A widow, adrift before she found a place her, stubborn and set in her ways, quick to judge.  She liked to think she too had grown in her time here, that she had become slower to develop prejudices, that she was more willing to hear others opinions and consider them. 

What she didn’t notice, perhaps, was her own change in manner.  Now, when she saw Jed, she almost always greeted him with a smile.  When they were unexpectedly able to get some extra rations, she held out one of the new cook’s donut balls for him, rolled in powdered sugar.  When she ran across him early on rounds, she’d bring him an extra mug of tea.  When they were operating late into the night, she made sure that there was some supper, no matter how modest, ready for him before he fell into bed. 

She also didn’t notice his response in kind.  How he would keep an apple in his pocket to give her at those times when she had once again forgotten to eat.  How from time to time, he let the Matron know that his room should be used first, before Nurse Phinney’s, when she had not at the luxury of a bed in a string of days.  How his eyes would follow her during rounds, watching with a soft sort of fondness and longing, before being drawn back to whomever he was supposed to be examining at the moment.   Or how he had, more than once, idly written the name Mary Foster in the little notebook he carried to make patient notes in when things were at a lull. 

She had not noticed, and perhaps he truly hadn’t either, when she approached Emma nearly two weeks after she had brought the book to her to return it.  “Thank you, Emma.  It wasn’t what I’d normally read, but…” Mary paused, her eyes catching on Jed at the top of the stairs, where he gave her a smile before heading toward Summers’s office for a staff meeting.  “But it was most enlightening.” 

“You are quite welcome, Nurse Mary.”  Emma smiled at her warmly.  “My mother found Miss Austen's works on her bridal trip to England with my father, and bought a collection of them.  This has always been a favorite.  However, I’ve read it many times, and Mother won’t miss it for a while longer.  Perhaps you might see if Dr. Foster would also find it illuminating.” 

Mary blinked, and then gave her a soft smile in return.  “I just might.  Thank you.”  And with that, she turned to take the book back upstairs and away from the ward. 

Emma Green smiled wider.  She had grown up reading Miss Austen (scandalous though her mother’s friends found the books to be).  And she had always liked Pride and Prejudice.  So it was perhaps no wonder that she noted the similarities between Elizabeth Bennet and Nurse Mary, and more subtly between Mr. Darcy and Dr. Foster (that man had not a shy bone in his body, however).  And, well, if she was being honest with herself, it wasn’t her favorite work by the authoress.  She had always been partial to her own namesake.  After all, what is a little matchmaking between friends? 

**Author's Note:**

> Historical Note: Jane Austen was not yet popular in America at the time of the Civil War. Some of her works were in circulation, but usually only in what were called "Bowlderized" texts, meaning anything thought to be offensive or lewd would be removed. Remember, America, for all it's talk of freedom, could be a little more puritanical than the Mother Country. I liked the idea, thought, of Emma Green, who starts the series off acting very much the aristocratic and flighty heroine, having been exposed to Austen early, and in more complete forms. Jane finally reaches major popularity in America in the 1870s.
> 
> Gifting this one to emmadelosnardos, because I enjoy her ongoing epistolary piece so much. Someday in the nearish future, I'll see about joining you in the M for Mercy Street club. :D


End file.
